Valve made a triumphant return to the hardware market with the Steam Deck and its oled aughpart, and now it has another crack at Virtual with a frame. The Steam frame is a long head from the valve that was previously released with the codenary “destkard. The company also announced a new controller for Steam and PC called the Steam machine. All three devices come in 2026.
Valve says the Steam framework is a wireless headset, “streaming-first” and you can pledge to your games as soon as you open them. Supports VR and Flatscreen games. This company has made a plug-and-play 6GHZ wireless adapter that you plug into your PC (or Steam machine). It has a Dual-Radio setup to help reduce interference, with one radio dedicated to streaming audio and head-up viewing, and the other to Wi-Fi.
But you don’t need a PC to play games on Steam Frame. As with the Meta Quest Headsets, it can serve as a standalone device for gaming. The headset has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Chipset, 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of built-in UFS storage. There is a microSD card slot as well.
The Steam frame is powered by a 21.6 wh li-ion rechargeable battery. There is one USB-C 2.0 port on the back for both charging and data transfer. You can recharge the battery at a rate of up to 45w.
The Steam framework has a handy feature called clean streaming. Valve says this uses low-latency eye tracking to add detail to the image no matter what your eyes look like. The company says it can offer a “10x improvement in image quality and bandwidth efficiency.” The modified stream is said to apply to every game in your Steam Library.
The headset has Dual 2160 x 2160 LCD panels with refresh rates up to 144hz. Valve added that “thin and light pancake lenses provide edge-free sharpness and a large eyebox.” As for the sound, the Steam frame has two stereo speakers on each side with high fidelity audio support. Valve says the speakers on each side “are oriented in different directions to cancel out motion,” which can affect the tracking system.
Speaking of which, the headset has four top monochrome cameras for control and tracking through the headset. Valve says there are non-frame LEDs on the accessory that can help support tracking in dark environments.
The Steam frame is far from the first VR headset. It released the valve guide in 2019, and previously worked with HTC on its top, first VR products before HTC shifted its focus to business and enterprise.
While there aren’t any of Valve’s Pec-Focused PC-focused games IS still a working platform, not that Sony’s Release Calendar is bringing it back), the company is looking at what might be Medium’s FREE ORIGINAL Half-Life: alyx. And with Stolos on the Steam deck being a hit once they begged Valve to allow them to put it in their opponents’ fields, it’s easy to think of a big contender for Meta Quech.
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